Info Wanted: Hardcore - in Academy Ratio? Released or preserved? On tv?

I’m not sure what the rules are on a film like Hardcore, but I thought I’d better ask anyway. When comparing stills from a widescreen and a fullscreen shot from that same movie, I found that apparently it was shot at Academy Ratio, but the top and bottom were chopped for a widescreen release. What I want to know is, was the entire movie in full frame ever released or preserved at all? Indeed, was it relegated to TV showings? (Assuming of course it was ever on TV at all.)

I got the stills from a recording of a TV spot for the film, but for this purpose I did get a longer clip of one scene.

Stack the same frame from the more widely-circulated widescreen version on top and you'll see what I'm getting at.

Not sure why this came about, but I can probably see some of the reasoning behind it.

Any film shot in 1.66 or 1.85 with 4-perferations is just a crop of the 1.33 academy frame. You'd be surprised at how much film is wasted doing things this way, but it was the quickest and cheapest way to get a widescreen image retrofitted into as many cinemas as possible during the 50s. 

Here's a visual example: 

So example A: this is how silent films were shot (and which later became revived in the 80s with the Super35mm format.)

Example B is the same aspect ratio more or less as the silent film frame (1.33), but shrank to allow the optical film track in between the left sprockets and the image. This is how films were shot and projected from 1929 until about the 50s.

Example C: the frame from example B is cropped on the top and bottom to allow cheap and easy widescreen (1.66 and 1.85). This method became popular starting in the 50s. 

HOWEVER: note that films would not necessarily be cropped in camera. Many films were shot using the methods in example B but the cinematographer would make sure to frame his or her shot so it would be cropped properly when distributed in the move theater. This "soft matte" would often be opened up on home video to allow a 1.33 image on old square televisions. 

This explains why there are widescreen and 'fullscreen' versions of your film. 

Finally, example D is how some early sound films were shot. They merely cut off part of the image on the left to make room for the sound track and thus was born the short-lived 1.19 aspect ratio. They quickly moved to 1.33 by cutting off the top and bottom a bit (see example B), however, this was later revived in the 50s and 60s for cinemascope. Using a 2x anamorphic squeeze lens, you get... a 2.39 aspect ratio. 

Interesting. Seems an awful waste, but I get what you're saying.

FrankT said:

Interesting. Seems an awful waste, but I get what you're saying.

 Well, it's just how things evolved while trying to keep everything compatible. 

Nowadays, films don't need to be shot like this since everything is scanned and put into a computer. Filmmakers can shoot using a 3-perf pulldown, which gives them a large, native 1.85 aspect ratio AND 25% film savings. Some can also use 2-perf pulldown for a near 2.35 aspect ratio and 50% film savings. Here's a visual:

Recently, some have shot films using 1.3x anamorphic lenses on Super35mm film (example A from above) giving them the entire 4-perf film area, but with a wide 1.78 aspect ratio.

Welcome to the wonderful world of open-matte.

Sometimes you can see shots that come off better in the full open aperture but usually there is far too much dead space in either top or bottom. Many of the 50's films presented in both Academy and a matted presentation are hard to determine their intended look.

Ironically I caught a bit of American Gigolo the other night in open matte.

captainsolo said:

Welcome to the wonderful world of open-matte.

 Many of the 50's films presented in both Academy and a matted presentation are hard to determine their intended look.

 And Kubrick films!

It can be. Of course anything is possible but its very rare to see only a handful of shots be hard matted if the rest is open. The only example I know of is the shower scene in Psycho  that had hard printed mattes on the bottom and top edges to prevent any potential nudity when shown full open. (As it should be shown.)

Supermartyoh said:

Very interesting.... I knew all about Psycho's odd matting choices.

I remember reading somewhere that 2 Fast 2 Furious, while shot in Super 35 like its predecessor to make 4:3 full screen versions and crop appropriately to 2.35:1, had the SFX scenes done within the full 1.66:1 (I think) aperture, but everything else was hard matted to scope. What do you think of that?

Looks like i'll be checking the 4:3 DVDs along with the SE widescreens then.

 I'm a bit confused by what you're saying... Hard matte to 2.35? If they did shoot super35, and crop non sfx shots to 2.35, the resulting prints sent to movie theaters would be in anamorphic. Not hard matte. 

Sfx shots in 1.66 is a compromise between 4:3 and 2.35 and... Money/time! It's unheard of to make open matte sfx shots. Cropping a square format to 2.35 results in a lot of wasted pixels and any computer generated effect would have to increase their resolution by a large factor to account for this crop to insure that a cropped and blown up sfx will not look like crap. With 1.66, you either crop a little from the top and bottom (scope) or a little from the sides ("fulllscreen") and still maintain optimum quality. 

EDIT: after some light searching, it appears that 2Fast2Furious shot their FX shots with VistaVision. In a nutshell, it's shooting 35mm like a still camera (film is advanced horizontally and each frame is 8 sprockets wide), so you have twice the negative space as Super35. Although the real negative size has a 1.5:1 aspect ratio, this is usually cropped to 1.66 or 1.85. That would explain the discrepancy. 

Jonno said:

you might find a fullscreen VHS tape - Ebay turns up a couple of copies in Italy, at least.

 Which lots might those be?